Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about baseball and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the baseball urban legends featured so far.

BASEBALL LEGEND: As an adolescent, Mark Teixeira had an interesting way of expressing his appreciation for the band, Nirvana.

Mark Teixeira is the first baseman for the New York Yankees.

He was the runner-up for the 2009 American League Most Valuable Player Award.

Born in 1980, as a pre-teen, Teixeira was a major fan of the band Nirvana, and especially its lead singer, Kurt Cobain.

The young man was SO into the group that when he was 12 years old, which was right smack in the middle of that two-three year period when Nirvana was pretty much the biggest band in the world (their 1991 album, Nevermind AND their 1993 album, In Utero, both hit #1 on the charts), the young Teixeira decided to pay tribute to Kurt Cobain.

How?
By changing his name to Kurt Teixeira.

Now, being 12 years old and all, he couldn’t ACTUALLY change his name (legally, at least), but he effectively changed his name, as he began signing everything as “Kurt Teixeira.”

In an interview with MLB Network’s Harold Reynolds, Teixeira’s mother spilled the beans. When asked about it, the first baseman replied:

I would fill out…anytime I’d fill anything out whether it was for comic books or CD clubs or anything I would write Kurt Teixeira just because I didn’t know what I was doing. I was twelve years old and I was having fun with it.

The interview didn’t go into how Teixeira reacted when Cobain killed himself in 1994. I imagine he did not take it too well.

The legend is…

STATUS: Oddly True

Thanks to Harold Reynolds for getting the info, Margy Canterna Teixeira for spilling the beans about her son and Mark Teixeria for confirming it.

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